


Reunion

by gh0stberry



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Trapped In A Closet, awkward confessions, pls do not try to raise sea turtles by yourself, since writing this i've learned that sea turtles are an endangered species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 09:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7634464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gh0stberry/pseuds/gh0stberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaoru drops by for an unexpected visit and things don't quite go as expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> hello enstars fandom i have like 5 more wips i can't believe this is the first one i've finished

Souma holds his breath and squints, desperately trying to make out anything in the darkness. The only light coming into the closet comes from the crack between the door and the floor, but even that doesn’t do much since the hallway outside is illuminated only by moonlight. Barely able to make out the door knob in front of him, he huffs and tries to shift his weight, only to be reminded that he is not alone in the closet.

"You take up too much space," he hisses, voice barely above a whisper. 

"I'm already scrunched into this corner, Souma-kun, I'm not sure what more you want from me," Kaoru hisses back.

Souma prepares to fire back when a board creaks in the hallway. Both boys fall into an uncomfortable silence, barely even breathing as footsteps sound. By the time the footsteps are gone, Souma is almost ready to pass out. 

He breathes out, relaxing finally, and slumps down the wall, just a bit, only to jerk back up when he practically sits on Kaoru's leg. 

"Hey–"

"Don't start with me, Souma-kun," Kaoru mutters. "You think I enjoy having my knee between a guy's thighs?"

The question causes heat to rush to Souma's face. "Are you telling me you enjoy having your knee between a girl's thighs?"

"Well--"

"How disgusting!"

Although still quiet, their voices are steadily rising in volume. It comes as a great surprise to Souma when Kaoru claps a hand over his mouth and hisses for him to be quiet.

The footsteps are back, and this time they stop in front of the hallway closet. Both boys freeze, holding their breath for real this time. When the footsteps move on without opening the door, Kaoru slumps forward a little, head coming to rest on Souma's shoulder.

Souma wants nothing more than to shake him off, but there's really nowhere for his head to go, other than up, which is apparently not an option. All three walls of the closet are occupied by shelves full of school supplies, and Souma can feel the ones behind him digging into his back. No doubt Kaoru is in the same position.

“Hey,” Souma mutters, shrugging his shoulder slightly in an effort to get Kaoru to lift his head. “Get off me.”

“Souma-kun, you’re so mean to me,” Kaoru whines, dragging out the last word. “Can’t you at least let me catch my breath? That was super scary you know~”

“ _You_ were scared?” Souma is incredulous. “You’re the reason we’re trapped in this closet in the first place!” It’s hard to tell in the darkness, but Souma thinks Kaoru is pouting. 

“I just wanted to come visit my juniors, Souma-kun.”

“In the middle of the night? UNDEAD doesn’t even have night practices anymore!”

“Who said I was visiting Adonis-kun and Koga-kun?”

“But they’re–”

“–not my only juniors,” Kaoru sings softly. 

“Huh?” 

“I came to see you~ You’re trying to raise sea turtles right? So, of course you’d still be here late at night.” Souma can just make out the upward curve of Kaoru’s lips and for a moment anger bubbles up his throat at Kaoru’s smirk, but then his words sink in and panic overtakes the anger.

“How did you know about the turtles?” Souma chokes out. The only person who knew was Adonis, who’d only discovered by accident, and he’d promised not to say anything…

“Kanata-kun mentioned it. He said you were asking him a lot about raising sea turtles last month and figured you were following in his footsteps or something.” Kaoru shrugs and Souma’s stomach twists. The former club president had seen through him so easily? How shameful! Of course, Shinkai-dono had always been more perceptive than he appeared, but Souma thought he’d known that, thought he could get around it…

Kaoru huffs, drawing Souma’s attention back to him. “Not that I care, honestly. I’m not a student at this school anymore.”

Ah, the anger is back. “You have no concern for the reputation of this school now that you’ve left, even though it’s reputation can still affect your own? You’re unbelievable!” he hisses.

“Mm, but you’re in the same boat? Did you consider that before you brought them here?”

Souma flushes, unwilling to admit that Kaoru is right out loud, but fortunately he doesn’t have to. Kaoru pokes his shoulder and changes topics.

“Take me to them, I wanna see.”

“The turtles?”

“Yeah. Whoever walked by earlier is probably gone, so we’ll be fine. I think.” 

Souma scowls and puts a hand behind him, feeling around for the doorknob. When he finds it, he turns slowly, watching the sliver of light coming into the closet expand and wash over Kaoru’s face.

This is the first good look at him that Souma’s gotten all night. His hair is longer, and tied in a ponytail that hangs over one shoulder. He’s also not in uniform, which Souma should’ve expected. It’s weird seeing Kaoru in sweats and a t-shirt though. He looks so… normal. 

Souma turns around quickly and peeks into the hallway. When he’s confident that no one is coming from either side, he steps out, Kaoru right behind him. 

Souma leads the way down the hallway, keeping a little more than an arm's length ahead of Kaoru.

“Souma-kun, why are you keeping so much distance between us? I thought our relationship was better than that?”

Souma knows that Kaoru’s just being melodramatic to irk him, and he hates that it’s working.

“I don’t want you dragging me into another closet, thank you very much.”

“You’re mad about that? It was a good idea though, you know? If I hadn’t, you would’ve yelled at me for coming back in the middle of the hallway and we definitely would’ve been caught.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad idea, I just don’t like _your_ ideas. We’re here.” Souma stops in front of the familiar door of the Marine Biology Club and reaches into his pocket for the room key he’d taken home earlier.

Kaoru makes an appreciative noise behind him, although whether it’s about the room being the same as it was last year or about Souma’s presumed key theft, Souma’s not sure. 

They enter silently. Souma forgoes the lightswitch by the door, instead finding his way around by touch until he can turn the lamp above the turtle tank on. 

The room is flooded with soft blue light. Souma looks back to the door, where Kaoru still stands. He’s staring straight at Souma, and for once, his expression is unreadable.

“What?” Souma asks suspiciously.

“Hm? Oh, nothing. Forget about it.” Kaoru approaches the tank carefully until he reaches Souma’s side and peers in. Their shoulders brush for an instant before Souma shies away.

Down below, two baby sea turtles crawl around the tank. Sand covers about a third of the tank before giving way to water collected from the beach below the school. Both turtles remain on the sand.

“Why?” Kaoru asks. Souma glances at him out of the corner of his eye, and his skin crawls. He feels like he’s seeing something he shouldn’t. A soft smile spreads across Kaoru’s face, and his expression is just so _gentle_ it kind of makes Souma want to hide his own face.

“They didn’t make it to the sea,” Souma confesses. “I went to watch them hatch, but these two got stuck.” He points to one closer to the water. “The sand collapsed and trapped this one, and the other one was born with a twisted leg.” He indicates the back right leg of the other turtle, and Kaoru purses his lips.

“Did you name them? Come on, Souma-kun, please tell me you named them.”

Souma flushes because, yes, he named them, but there’s no way in hell he’d tell Kaoru what he’d named them.

Kaoru pokes his cheek. “Souma-kyun~ That face says you did name them. What did you pick?” 

Kaoru leans in close enough to feel the heat probably radiating off of Souma’s face, and he stammers out, “T-the one with the bad leg is Shinkai and, um, the other one is…” He looks away. “Hakaze.”

Kaoru is silent for longer than Souma’s ever known him to be before. He looks back at Kaoru slowly, bracing himself (for what he doesn’t know, but he feels like he should brace himself so he does), and finds that Kaoru is looking back at him with that unreadable expression again.

“Souma-kun, you’ve gotta stop doing that.” Kaoru says suddenly. 

Souma jumps. “Doing what?” he asks indignantly.

Kaoru tips his head slightly, narrowing his eyes at Souma as he thinks. Finally, he gestures to Souma. “That,” he says almost petulantly. “You’re cute when you get really into the sea turtle thing.” His statement comes out more like a muttered question, but Souma hears it clear as day anyway, and Souma is floored. He stands there, opening his mouth to respond and then closing it again, unable to find the words he wanted. 

Finally, he blurts out the one coherent thought bouncing around in his mind. “I thought you didn’t like guys?” 

Kaoru puffs up his cheeks, then bursts into laughter. He leans forward, resting his forehead on the edge of the tank, and laughs and laughs and laughs. 

A minute or so passes before he calms down enough to look up at Souma again.

“Me too,” he admits, “but you’re– no, actually, never mind, forget it. I’ve seen the turtles, I’ll just go home now.” Kaoru turns around and takes a step for the door when Souma lunges forward and grabs his wrist to stop him.

Kaoru turns back to him, one eyebrow raised, expectant and silent.

“What were you going to say?” Souma demands. “About me, I mean.” 

Kaoru sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t like me and you never have. I don’t want to be the one to make things weird.”

“You don’t know that,” Souma murmurs. “I don’t hate you, at least.”

Kaoru stares at him, trying to decide how much to say. “You… see through me. You know when I’m messing with you and you won’t tolerate it and it’s refreshing.” Kaoru runs a hand through his hair. This is the first time Souma has seen him look nervous, and he’s not sure how he feels about it. _I’m the one making him nervous_ , Souma thinks. His stomach twinges.

“I missed you,” Kaoru continued quietly. “I didn’t realize it at first, but I did enjoy club meetings, when I came. Because of Kanata-kun, and because of you.” Kaoru loops his free hand over his shoulder to grab the back of his neck, as if trying to ground himself. He looks self conscious.

“Can I leave now?”

Instead of answering, Souma lunges forward again. He lets go of Kaoru’s wrist for a second, only to wrap both of his arms around him. 

Kaoru squawks as he’s pulled into the hug, but Souma ignores him in favor of resting his forehead on Kaoru’s shoulder and breathing in.

He smells faintly of salt, and the same cheap cologne he used when he went to the academy. It’s comforting.

Hesitantly, Kaoru wraps his arms around Souma, one hand on his back and the other on the back of his head.

“Stay,” Souma says, lifting his head to look his upperclassman in the eye. “Please.”

“O-okay,” Kaoru agrees, cheeks turning pink.

They stay like that for a few moments, breathing synced, before Souma breaks the silence. “I missed you too. And I don’t dislike you, Kaoru-dono.”

He feels Kaoru stiffen in his arms at the sudden use of his first name, then relax again. 

“Nice to know, Souma-kun.”

When Kaoru angles his head down and leans toward Souma, for perhaps the first time, Souma welcomes the closeness of their bodies and tips his head up to meet him.

**Author's Note:**

> -i dont know anything about sea turtles  
> -i have never used so many ~s in my life  
> -i love kaoru? so much? pls save me  
> -s/o to case @satyrgod for enabling and encouraging me he is the real mvp  
> -i hope this was as enjoyable to read as it was to write


End file.
